Explaining Modern Social Reality The Basic Concepts in Norbert Elias’s Figurational Sociology

PART 1. Norbert Elias: Biography, Characteristics and Influence

1.1. Life Path

1.2. The place of Norbert Elias in sociology

1.3. Theory of Knowledge

1.4.1. The influence of Hegel

1.4.2. The influence of Edmund Husserl

1.4.3. The influence of Karl Mannheim

1.4.4. The influence of Max Weber

1.4.5. The Influence of Karl Marx

1.4.6. The Influence of Émile Durkheim

1.4.7. The influence of Sigmund Freud

1.5. Figurational sociology

1.5.1. Figurational sociology and the relationship to Talcott Parsons

1.5.2. Basic characteristics of figurational sociology

1.5.3. Figurational sociology and interdependence of individuals

1.5.4. Figurations and processes

1.6. Evolutionism

1.7. The process of individualization

1.8. Value neutrality

PART 2. Sociogenesis of Society

2.1. Reflections of the book "The Civilization process"

2.1.1. Civilization as a concept

2.1.2. Controversies of the civilization as a concept

2.1.3. Civilization or culture

2.1.4. The process of civilization and social stratification

2.1.4.1. The evolution of class structure in Elias' opus

2.1.5. The process of civilization and the behavior of individuals

2.2. Survival units

2.2.1. Civilization and the state

2.2.2. National states and nations

2.2.3. Nations and nationalism

2.3. The civilizing process and political history of Europe

2.3.1. The civilizing process and the European Union

2.3.2. The evolutionary path of the EU

2.3.3. European identity and Elias

2.4. De-civilization process

2.4.1. Social preconditions for the de-civilization of Germany

2.4.2. National - socialism and de-civilization

2.4.3. De-civilization and the Holocaust

2.5. Violence

2.5.1. The role of the state in regulating violence

2.5.2. The conceptualization of the power of Norbert Elias

2.5.3. Violence and wars

2.5.4. Violence and global interdependences

PART 3. Psychogenesis of the Social Behaviour

3.1. The structure of the personality in the work of Norbert Elias

3.1.1. The concept of habitus in the work of Elias

3.2. In and Out Groups

3.3. The concept of involvement, distance and detachment in Elias' work

3.4. The importance of emotions in Elias' sociology

3.4.1. Emotions and manners of behavior

3.4.2. The role of shame in the civilizing process

3.4.2.1. Тhe social aspects of shame

3.4.2.2. The evolutionary development of shame

3.4.2.3. How shame has become invisible in modern society

3.4.3. The difference between shame and humiliation

3.4.3.1. The role of the feeling of humiliation in the process of civilization

3.4.3.2. The concept of humiliation in the Elias’s work

3.5. Informalization

3.5.1. Civilization and sexuality

3.5.2. The relationship between the sexes in the Elias’s work

3.5.3. Transformation of the attitude towards the body

 (Civilization of the body)

3.6. Critical review of the work of Norbert Elias

Bibliography

Glossary of Terms

Biography

Kire Sharlamanov is Professor of Sociology at the International Balkan University in Skopje, North Macedonia, where he teaches courses in political sociology and the analysis of contemporary societies. His research explores ideology, democratic transformations, and the symbolic dimensions of politics through a synthesis of classical sociology and contemporary discursive theory. He is the author of several books and numerous scholarly articles.

Jana Petreska is a psychologist whose work examines emotions, identity, and the social formation of personality through the ideas of Norbert Elias.